Zeus Virus Removal

Trojan horses are not a joke. Do you know that these nasty pieces of software are so widespread on the web, that they are responsible for more than 70% of all malware infections? So, the chance of catching one of them is big and if you have just detected one such threat on your computer, you should better read the next lines. Here we are going to talk about one specific Trojan, named Zeus Virus, which has recently been detected to cause problems to a number of users. How it spreads, how it infects the user’s machine and most importantly, how to remove the infection is what we are going to discuss below. We have also prepared a detailed removal guide, which contains exact step-by-step instructions and screen shots that can help you detect and delete Zeus Virus. Hopefully, the information that you will find here will be useful enough for you to effectively handle the threat and eliminate all of its traces from your system.

Zeus Virus pretends to be a harmless attachment, but it silently infects your system!

Trojan horses are infamous for their ability to camouflage and Zeus Virus is not an exception. The hackers, who use this malware to compromise the users’ computers, usually mask it as a seemingly harmless piece of content. It could be an email attachment, a link, an interesting offer, a fake ad or illegal web page, torrent or some attractive infected installer. The malicious transmitters of the Trojan can be numerous. What it takes to get infected is only one click and the Trojan can silently sneak inside the system, without even showing any visible symptoms. From then on, it acts as a dreadful danger with unpredictable harmful capabilities. But what exactly do we mean by this? Let us tell you more.

Zeus Virus may be very diverse when it comes to its malicious abilities!

When you are dealing with a Trojan, you have to keep in mind that a threat from this family may be effectively used by the hackers for a number of malicious deeds. It is very much possible that Zeus Virus could be programmed to perform a specific harmful action, like spying, data and system corruption, stealing of credentials, passwords, and accounts, tracking your activity down, or introducing other malware like Ransomware inside your machine. Let us tell you more about these malicious activities and how harmful they can be for your system and personal safety.

System corruption, modifications, and destruction of your data:

By being infected with Zeus Virus, your system may start to behave strangely. The hackers may use the Trojan to modify your system settings, mess around with your data, move, replace or delete files, gain unauthorized access to the entire system and crash or corrupt it totally. Quite often, they do that just to entertain themselves and test their hacking abilities, by destroying the victims’ systems and having fun at their expense.

Credential stealing:

Very often, a threat like Zeus Virus may be used as an effective instrument for spying and stealing different sensitive data. The Trojan can be programmed to secretly keep a track on everything you do on your computer and transmit this data directly to its creators. This way, the criminals can gain direct access to your accounts, passwords, login credentials, online banking, credit or debit cards data, and other confidential information.

Insertion of other malware inside your system:

Do you know that a great number of Ransomware infections usually happen thanks to Trojans? A nasty script like Zeus Virus can act as a cover for any virus or malware to sneak inside your system. Not only Ransomware crypto viruses but other different nasty threats can often take advantage of that and get right into your system without you even knowing it. What is more, Zeus Virus can create numerous system vulnerabilities, making your computer unstable and prone to all sorts of infections!

Now, after all that we said, we hope that you have a better idea what a nasty threat Zeus Virus is and how it can affect your computer and your privacy. Keep in mind, though, that it is impossible to describe all the possible criminal activities a Trojan horse can be used for. However, do you really need to wait for something worse to happen to remove Zeus Virus from your system? Definitely not! So, scroll down to the removal guide and take immediate actions. Don’t let the Trojan stay even a minute longer inside your system. You are just a few steps from the safe and successful elimination of the threat from your computer, so follow the instructions and let us know about the outcome.

Zeus Virus Removal

Sidenote: Readers of this guide are advised to bookmark this page or have it opened on another device since it is possible that they will need to close the browser at a some point during the tie they are completing the following steps.

Step 1

The first thing that needs to be done prior to anything else is that you boot your PC into Safe Mode. If you are not sure how to do it, use this link to a guide on how to enter Safe Mode.

Step 2

Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager. Go to the Processes section and look for any suspicious-looking processes. Usually, malware processes use high amounts of RAM and CPU and also have shady description (or none at all). Right-click on those processes and select Open File Location. If you are sure that the process is coming from the virus, delete everything in the file location. Also, right-click on the process again and then select End Process.

Step 3

Press Winkey + R and type appwiz.cpl. Press Enter and in the newly opened window look for any shady program installs. Right-click on the suspicious programs and select uninstall. Follow the prompts to uninstall the sketchy application.

Step 4

Open the Run window again (Winkey + R), type msconfig and hit Enter. Go to the Startup section and from the list of programs, uncheck everything that seems shady or has an unknown or suspicious-looking manufacturer. Click on OK. On Windows 10, the startup programs list is in the Task Manager.

Step 5

Open the Start Menu and paste the following line in the search bar: notepad %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/hosts. Click on the first result that gets displayed. A notepad file should open, look at the bottom of the text and see if there are any IP addresses below localhost. Write to us in the comments if you saw anything there.

Step 6

Type regedit in the Run search bar and hit Enter. When the Registry Editor opens, press Ctrl + F, type the name of the virus and select Find Next. If anything gets found, right-click on it and select Delete. Do this for all search results.

Additionally, manually navigate to the following directories and see if they have any folders/keys that look shady (with a lot of random numbers and letters):